Tiote, Colback And Dummett Start For Newcastle

Steve McClaren has just announced his team for the vital game this afternoon against Norwich City and the head coach has recalled Paul Dummett, Jack Colback and Cheick Tiote.

We had a feeling that Cheick would get a recall in one of the central midfield positions and Dummett is preferred to Sadio Haidara for his first appearance of the season for Newcastle after recovering from a hamstring problem which was a carryover from last season.

Rob Elliot comes in for the injured Tim Krul and Freddie Woodman is on the bench and Vurnon Anita gives way to Tiote.

Newcastle will play in a 4-4-2 formation with Mitrovic and Perez up front and Cheick Tiote and Jack Colback in central midfield.

The bench is strong with Woodman, Haidara, Lascelles, Anita, de Jong, Thauvin and Papiss Cisse.

This is what head coach Steve McClaren has said about today’s game:

“We’re at home against Norwich, but it doesn’t matter who the opponent is this weekend – we have to perform.” “Norwich have been very good. It’s not surprising because they’ve got the confidence of promotion and have added very well.”

“They’re proving they can be a real handful and probably deserve to have picked up a few more points than they have done thus far.” “It’s about winning but it’s also about performance.”

“I’m not looking at the table just yet but I am looking at the performance and we’ve got to give one on Sunday.”

“We owe that to the crowd – we’ve got to fight and show the same level of support and effort against Norwich, as we saw against Chelsea.”

“Now is the time for our players to focus on doing their job, performing for 90 minutes and giving the fans what they want – do that and we will win games.”

Jib Jibberish – are you commenting on the match today in your guise as Jib or Jane. If the later – do you go the whole hog and get dressed up as a woman – you know frillies, high heels and a splash of make-up.
I have a vision of you stumbling and tripping up with your high heels on (a la Dick Emery).

Not sure wat to think……my footie predictor is goin well and I have us down for a win, a clean sheet and mitrovic to score – go big or go home ha ha
Telford Utd won (that never happens unless the Toon win lol)
My family r all ill but I am fine (good sign or is the illness saving the best for last?)

Optimistic
From memory he last played properly around New Years, so 10 months ago…..
Can’t understand dropping Anita for him, had to be Colback, regardless of what anyone thinks of Anita there’s no denying playing 2 players who are identical in every way is utterly f**king pointless

JC CT – Can only pass sideways……if they can’t tackle it then there useless
Such a negative midfield, and once again with Gini wasted out wide, and Sissoko wasting a spot, where’s the service for the forwards come from?

but we never know when that day will be….at the start of the season i was expecting us a top 8 finish…but now i am hoping whether we will win our next match before 2016….atleast i will be happy with a 1-0 or 2-0 defeat today…nothing more than that…anyhow cheers mate…lets hope we are in for a treat today

If you bring tiote in for whatever reason, and you had to decide between the ginger ninja and anita, I would take Anita every time…he’s got a cool head, he can pass, he’s intelligent and can spoil. Colback is just a mini me Tiote which means free kicks galore for Norwich and Gerome will dominate Colo all day and score a header from a un-necessary free kick given away from Colback or Tiote

We will win. Norwich gets about a goal a game and we have scoring threats with Mitro, Perez and Gini all playing so I expect a a pair off them. As usual it all comes down to our back 4 but I think we’ll hold them to one… They are not Chelsea or Man City and their only wins are against Sunderland and Bournemouth. HWTL!!!

I do not rate Tiote but he is worth the gamble. Anita & Colback just isn’t working.

Colback had some good games playing with Abeid, Abeid sat very deep allowing Colback to play higher up the pitch… if that happens today I would prefer Colback over Anita. When I watch Anita he always seems to overcook his passes which puts other players into trouble.

Perhaps Anita’s stabbing motion passes worked at Ajax, but the players in our squad are not on Anita’s wavelength.

50,000 paying too watch dross! Well done Mike.
At least those fans waving those banners last season are getting what they asked for- we don’t want a team that wins (we’ve got that), we want a club that tries (Mash did spend 50mil).

Tiote still a total eff up. Rash yellow and caught dwelling on the ball in the opening half hour. Only has to do an atrocious attempt at a Hollywood pass and blaze one over the bar and he has a full house on his “I’m crap” bingo card.

I have been in the army 20 years where we always expect / prepare for the worst and I support Newcastle Utd…..

Positivity does not come easy and I fully expect the team to come out worse in the second half, sit back, concede and drop their heads!
Come on half time galvanise them, inject them with courage and controlled aggression so that we can smash these chumps.

Iggy, Tiote has been much better since the yellow, has won the ball back in midfield mainly through aerial challenges. His speed of pass is something our other midfielders dont have.
Both midfielders have pirouetted and lost the ball a number of times though

For me Janmaat has very poor game, defensive he has to be a lot more agressive than he is. He has to go against player with ball, he just stand and watch…Offensively we did very good, but defensively, we need new players, at least and we also need DM, Tiote isnt good enough…we need somebody much better there, he has the power but his decisions are poor, and with ball he is very slow…we need presence there and be more aggresive at full backs positions

Sissoko is a big tart when it comes to putting his head in – he chooses not to.
In terms of quality – poor stuff – but we really need our fist win today -hopefully we do not run out of steam again – must be on the cards though.

All around bad defending as a unit today….their second goal makes this really apparent.

Sissoko doesn’t track Ollson, Janmaat is do deep and doesn’t even make an effort to close the cross, Tiote and Colback don’t track the runners into the box, as a consequence Dummet get’s sucked in the middle…Redmond is free on the left, goal.

Predict that they will score 2 more but so will we. I will run out of beer, Colback will pick up a soft yellow, Bar 1892 will run out of nuts and a bloke called Dave will follow through when he farts in the stands. Sissoko will claim a hamstring pull to get subbed when they go ahead and Elliot will think wat the hell have I got into….

Brilliant entertaining game
Glad McClaren has dropped his idea of possession football and playing out from the back, theres no particular style to it but some of the team play is very good.
The defence is still feckin horrid though!

Really positive victory if we hold on. I’d a feeling that the strength and movement of Perez and Mitro would have been too much for Norwich to deal with, add the combined performances of Sissoko and Gini then it’s no surprise that we put 5 goals past a Norwich side who are shockingly poor at the back.

Not a perfect victory by any means, our inability to control possession when we take the leads is mind boggling and the fact that our 4th goal came ridiculously against the run of play in the 2nd half is a stroke of good fortune. Norwich had us hemmed in for 15 minutes of the 2nd half. We are going to play much better teams – offensively and defensively – so we’d need to play even better than this going forward.

3 points are 3 points at the end of the day, and hopefully this will at least create a bit of momentum going into the Wear-Tyne derby next weekend.

I’m sure when Janmatt was sent off all the commentators and pundits said he had to have a second yellow as a shirt pull is a mandatory yellow. I’ve seen three by Norwich today which were far worse and no yellows, don’t get it.

Ruddy of course you are right it is woeful but when Mitro was off we looked relegation like and with him we can trash relegation fodder teams. We can’t blame Macca if our back 4 bleed goals and now with Krul gone we need to fix that in the Jan window (should have been done in the summer) but don’t lay that at Macca’s feet he can only play the squad he has. If Macca has a say in the transfers he can be held to blame if we don’t improve after January but till then I’m happy to beat relegation teams and stay alive

The fact that Newcastle United can spend £50 million quid and still have a shite squad only serves to show that Ashley has had us on bare minimum for far too long.

I’m not looking to put the blame on the manager’s door but you’re seeming to imply that if we beat the Mackems all’s rosy, and all I am saying is that if 9 points from 10 games is all it takes to keep you happy, then you’re very easily pleased.

Recent posts will tell me you’ve certainly got a hate for colback getting game time but if you were to look up the stats of both sissoko and colback you’d find that colback has a performance score of 107 whilst sissoko’s performance score this season has been as low as 4.

If that doesn’t point out why so of us get so sick of this guy and his CL ranting i’m puzzled.

It’s not unrealistic to ask for that from sissoko but sometimes you need to consider the rest if the squad as well. The same used to be said about arfa, calls to sell a player who can do what sissoko has done today just never make sense to me especially when you consider what replacements we have!!

The last 2 games colback has been very good, Chelsea and today, my issue with him in the past has been his chasing the ball and leaving gaps that get exploited some your stats don’t cover and never will cover. Last 2 games he’s stopped chasing the ball and every man and looks better for it. Basic stuff mate, stats never give you a full picture

Cisse had a better goal ratio than Aguero last season does that mean his a better player or better striker? No he’s not even though the stats for goals return says otherwise!! Shows you why stats shouldn’t be taken literal!!

Having a shite squad doesn’t excuse Sissoko’s woeful lack of consistency. For the record, I would get rid of all the tripe (Gouffran, Willo, Marveaux, Colo, Dummett, Obertan, Anita, Colback et al) before I’d even consider selling Sissoko but rest assured I would not be seeking to rebuild a squad around Sissoko, in fact generally speaking I consider Sissoko to fall under the “tripe” bracket more often than not.

Let’s enjoy this win for what it is – a really good 3 points against who is likely to be fellow relegation strugglers so it is important in that sense. Let’s not assume that this will springboard us to being a mid-table side. It won’t.

Am picking Mitro’s strike over Gini’s 4th because it was fast on the break with perfect finish… Gini’s 4th he had time but what a beautiful strike hard to pick between the two but both were technical perfect so Mitro’s given speed he was moving at.

Brilliant performance by the boys!!! Absolutely brilliant!!! Just what we needed…. No1 wud have ever seen this result coming… Gini was amazing… N a big shout out to Moussa.. Yes, he played a part in both goals conceded, but going forward, he was rampant!!!
The defence does need a Lotta work, but that’s to be looked at tomorrow….
For now, let’s celebrate!!!! Cheers!!!!

If we have any chance of getting ourselves back on track this is that chance, wij will be on huge confidience, perez and mitro both showing the signs of a great forward partnership and hopefully we’ve got a sissoko who’ll be giving more decent performances rather than a crap ones.

it’s not strikers or midfielders i’ll be wanting next window it’s a whole new set of defenders.

My take on them today.

elliot- not much in the way of saves most those he did need were goals and one was blocked by wij

jam- terrible at blocking his defence, he’d be better off as a wing because he can attack very well and gets those crosses in well.

mbemba- poor match in defence but still has a chance to improve and it’s hard not to be negative when a fll back line is crap.

colo- just one word OUT

dummett- he seemed better than hairdryer but was sometimes getting too far inside, might have been forced to do so on some occassions but it’s relying on too much midfield help.

sissoko- excellent game today. Did have a bad attitude at defensive assistance to begin with but slowly he started providing more, certainly was great with attack.

tiote- Whilst his was playing we seemed to be a team with just 1 CM hardly any signs of himselfapart from that early yellow.

colback- great work rate and had some decent tackles but could have did more assisting dummett

wij- shows everything of a player with great spirit, was always around posing a threat to norwich, MOTM

perez- great movement in the norwich half linked up well with mitco and together they both allowed wij space for the goal

In honor of two dedicated Newcastle fans, who lost their lives supporting Newcastle United.

Their passenger jet was shot down over Ukraine on Thursday July 17th, 2014 by rebels, as they were traveling to support the team in New Zealand.

We will never forget them.

Health Update - 4 Aug, 2016

The good news last week was that after more blood tests my PSA count is still undetectable

This means the prostate cancer is still under control, and there is no trace of it in the body.

Now to be even more vigilant so I can see the Rafa Benitez project come to its fruition over the next few years - wouldn't want to miss that.

Howay The Lads!!>

Ed Harrison

What Is A Football Club?

What is a club in any case?

Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it.

It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes.

It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city.

It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.